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Forget The Table, How About A Seat On The Board?

With their insights into process, innovation, and technology, CIOs should be better represented on companies' boards. So why aren't they?

LGS, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, the telecom equipment maker, said that Alcatel-Lucent CIO Elizabeth Hackenson had been appointed to LGS' board of directors. The LGS board has four outside directors, two inside directors from Alcatel-Lucent, and one internal director from LGS. Hackenson is replacing Frank D’Amelio, former chief administrative officer of Alcatel-Lucent, who recently left the company.

Hackenson knows a lot about the business and technology of telecom. She was the CIO of Lucent when it was acquired by Alcatel last year for $13.4 billion. Before that she was the CIO of MCI.

Ron Iverson, the CEO of LGS, which specializes in government telecom services, said in a statement: "Elizabeth’s years of experience and her deep understanding of how the communications and data needs of large complex organizations work will be invaluable."

There are a few high-profile CIOs with board-level appointments, such as GM CIO Ralph Szygenda, who is on the board of the Handleman Company, a music and video distributor, and Rob Carter, CIO of Fedex, who is on the board of retailer Saks and was elected to the board of First Horizon, a financial services firm, in July. But the CIO talent pool has been largely ignored as a resource for filling open director slots.

And that's even though there are obvious advantages for many companies. In July, RehabCare Group, a managed care services company, appointed Kroger CIO Christopher Hjelm to its board of directors. "IT is a critical driver for many of our short- and long-range goals," said RehabCare CEO John Short, in a statement. "Chris's talent for building and leading high-performance technology infrasctructures on a large scale will be a tremendous asset as we implement these objectives."

What do you think? Should CIOs be better represented on boards of directors -- both internally and externally? Or is there a good reason to keep them out of the board room?

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